The Columbian. [volume] (Bloomsburg, Pa.) 1866-1910, 1887-04-15

schools with dangerous novelties in
the way of teaching; that these meth
ods are not adopted extensively iu the
best schools of the country aud that
they have proved a failure where they
have been used. To this l can only
reply that such a statement is entirely
at variance with the facts, and could
be made only by person who is ut
tetly uniformed as to what is done
TO day in the best schools of the coun-
try, or who, by misplacing confidence,
reliable sources.
The changes that have been made
in the work of our schools have, in all
essential points, been made in all pro-
gressive schools of the country within
the last fifteen years, and most of the
methods introduced, which have been
characterized as '.new," have been in
use in the best schools of some of our
cities for over twenty five years.
There is no instance on record where
these methods have proved failure,
excepting few small towns where
teachers did not understand the work
and had no competent supervision to
assist and direct them.
Without going into full explanation
of what we are doing in our schools, l
may briefly state that it is my purpose,
as well as the purpose of your Board,
to bring the work of our schools in
harmony with the best educational
thought of the day, to eliminate, as
far as possible, mechanical teaching
and rote learning, and to make all in
struction practical in the best sense of
the word To accomplish this some
chances will be necessary in all the
grades, and it will require at least
five or six years to make them. The
results will not appear in the higher
grades until pupils now trained in the
primary schools will reach those grades.
l have thus far devoted more time to
the work of the primary and lower
secondary schools than TO the higher
grades, in the first place, because by
far the larger number of pupils attend
ing public schools are found in these
grades, and many of these must leave
school before they reach the higher
grades; and in the second place, be-
cause the foundation for all reforms in
the work of the higher grades must
be laid in the primary schools.
The changes that have been made
are confined largely to arithmetic, ge-
ography and primary reading. In the
teaching of history, drawing, etc, but
few changes have been made. These
branches are as important as any of
the of the others, aud some changes
will be necessary in the future in order
that they may be taught with the
greatest possible efficiency.
Several features of our work have
been more particularly criticised by our
friends, and ] may be pardoned for
making brief reference to them spec
iically. The statement has been made
that pupils in our primary schools are
not taught the multiplication table. If
by this it is meant that they do not learn
the table at all and do not learn to
multiply, the statement is utterly in
correct. Children are taught from the
very start in the lowest primary schools
to add, subtract, multiply and divide
All the work is at first done with OBJ
jects, and they fix in the memory the
products of the various numbers as
fast as they learn the numbers, by re-
peatedly solving problems involving
these products. They learn the table
in this way intelligently from objects
as fast as they need it, and are at once
able to apply it to practical problems
The mere mechanical memorizing of
the entire multiplication table by Chill
dren six years old by repeating it ln
concert from day TO day, without
comprehending lis meaning, is a relic
of by gone days IN education, and
there are few educators of any stand.
ing who would pretend to defend it to-
day.
Even the use of objects in our pri-
mary schools has been criticised by
some of our friends and characterized
as playing with tooth-picks and shoe
pegs. This is the usual criticism made
by extremely conservative persons to
whom such work appears novel at first,
and it is criticism that is perhaps al
together harmless. | know of no book
on education that has been published
within the last twenty-five years that
does not recommend the use of objects
in teaching arithmetic to young chill
dren. just how long the use of OBJ
jects should be continued is a question
which only a aspecialist can lntelligently
decide, aud although the limit may be
indicated in a general way IN course
of study, it Is a question which must
virtually be decided by the teacher in
the case of each individual child.
The purpose of using objects is to give
the child the power 20 do his thinking
without them. As soon as objective
work has accomplished this purpose
it must be continued. When pupils
have had proper training in the pri.
mary grades, it is unnecessary to con
tinue objective work in the higher
grades except for the sake of occa.
sional illustration; but when pupils
have never had objective wolk in the
lower grades to any extent such work
be ZONES a necessity in the higher
grades. This / found to be the case
last year in our secondary and to some
extent even in our Grammar schools,
Pupils were unable TO give a rational
concrete illustration of some of the
simplest arithmetical processes. As
soon as pupils who have had proper
training in our primary schools reach
the higher grades objective work il
these grades can be discontinued.
We have been criticised also for mo-
teaching children the alphabet before
they learn TO read. 1t was supposed
that pupils had first to learn the letter.
before thay could possibly learn t
read. This method Of teaching